


presque vu

by viridianquills



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Gen, Ginko (Mushi), M/M, Minor Injuries, Of a sorts, Origin Story, Storytelling, Tokoyami, adagin is only implied; can be read as platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viridianquills/pseuds/viridianquills
Summary: presque vu |almost seen(psychology) Failure to remember something, with the sense that recall is imminent.Ginko tells Adashino a story he doesn't remember.





	presque vu

For the most part, Adashino would like to think he’s a pretty respectful person.

The townspeople seem to like him, and he treats them all with due courtesy, even if he can be easily distracted at times. The children especially like him, though he’s not always as polite to them— they’re pesky, but they just think his yelling is funny, so he supposes it’s not doing any harm. And beyond all that, he’s a doctor. That, he thinks, automatically grants him some refinement.

But on this issue, he will be as rude as he has to be to get an answer.

“I’m letting the bears eat me next time,” Ginko dryly comments, fingertips idling over the stitches in his leg. He’d been wading across what he _thought_ was a shallow river, only to step on a particularly unfortunate patch of rocks that gave way to a hole in the bank. He fell through, his leg fell through, and his calf got suddenly introduced to a rather sharp rock.

It figures that he was on his way here. Adashino is a good doctor, one of the best he’s ever known, but the amount of harassment he goes through anytime he’s taken care of makes him wonder if the quality is really worth it. Not that he'll stop, but still.

Adashino stares, unrelenting. “You did say you’d tell me _someday.”_

“Someday is a day that is not today.”

“All somedays eventually become todays.”

“All somedays are also tomorrows, sometimes.”

 _“Tomorrow_ you’ll slink out the door at the crack of dawn in the hopes I won’t catch you ruining your stitches.”

 _Damn._ Ginko internally curses, looking away. So much for that. “Don’t patients usually need to rest?”

At that, Adashino glares before he stands up, striding across the room to dig a futon out of the cabinets. It’s just a guest futon, but it’s Ginko’s more than anyone’s; he has a separate one for patients and he doesn’t entertain many guests. Adashino likes to think of himself as courteous, but not _that_ courteous. He lays it out on the floor beside where Ginko is sitting, making a show of fluffing the pillow before gesturing to it. “All right then. You can lay down while you tell me. Very restful.”

Ginko stares and wonders, distantly, if this is karmic revenge for all the times he’s sold overpriced merchandise to the doctor.

“Alright, alright,” he sighs, dragging a hand over his face. “It’s a short story, though.”

Adashino eyes him, gaze flicking between his hair and his eyes and his skin. “There’s never a short explanation for any of the mushi you tell me about.”

“Well, not for the ones we know about. We have things to say about those.” Ginko shifts his leg, thumbing over the injury. The stitches are neat and tidy, easy enough for him to take out himself; Adashino knows him too well. “I don’t know much about this one.”

He brings his hand to his face again, brushing his hair out of the way. It still feels exposed, doing that, and he doesn’t know if that’s the mushi’s unease or his own. Adashino, for once, is quiet, peering closer like he knows there’s _something_ he can’t see. “Tokoyami.”

“Tokoyami?” Adashino repeats.

“Tokoyami.”

“...You’re gonna have to tell me more than that,” Adashino deadpans. “What is it? What’s it look like? It did this to you? When? Are there lots of it? Does it talk? Do any mushi talk? How did—”

“Adashino.”

Adashino blinks, sitting back from where he’d been leaning forward in his excitement, words rushing together. “Sorry. But?”

“I suppose you can’t see this one, either.” Ginko’s fingers trace the outside of his eye socket, feeling the curve of it give way to nothingness. He’s tried sticking his fingers inside; it’s unpleasant. As is the prosthetic, so he goes without it frequently, hoping his hair will obscure the worst of it and keeping his eyelid closed when he’s talking to others. It’s just a habit by now, harder to keep it open with Adashino staring.

Harder, especially, when Adashino leans over, hands on the tatami mat and face inches from his. “There's a mushi there? You’re kidding me. The whole time you’ve been coming here you’ve been bringing a mushi and you didn’t even _tell_ me?”

He sounds so betrayed that Ginko can’t help but chuckle as he shoves him off, letting his hair fall back into place. “It’s not like I bring it on purpose. I don’t know how to remove it, or if I even can. Or what would happen to me if I did.”

_Or if there’s enough left of me without it._

“It just looks like an empty socket to me,” Adashino frowns. He almost looks like he’s pouting, settling back into a proper sitting position. “Does it hurt?”

He doesn’t ask with the concern you might expect; it’s just curiosity. No pity. It makes it easier to answer. “Not usually. Sometimes it has thrashed about, though.”

Adashino stares expectantly, questions right on the tip of his tongue. Ginko reaches over for his backpack and pulls a cigarette out of one of the drawers, lighting it on one of the coals of the room’s fire. He takes a long, slow drag, buying time while he organizes his thoughts.

Stories, he supposes, should start at the beginning.

“Well, as I said, it’s called a Tokoyami. It looks like darkness— nothing more, nothing less. The sort of darkness you get from closing your eyes in a completely sealed room, maybe darker. It eats memories.”

He lets that sentence sit while he stares at the smoke trailing off his cigarette, orange tip glowing dimly. After all these years, he wonders if his lungs smell like them yet, if you were to cut him open and take a look. He wonders what you'd find inside him at all. “I must have encountered it when I was… eleven. Ten. Somewhere around there. I don’t remember anything before that. I remember wandering in the woods, seeing the moon rise again and again, but never the sun. I couldn’t remember my name, or where I’d come from. For some reason, the only word that came to my head was _Ginko,_ and when I’d said it aloud, I found my way out of the woods. I told the first family that found me that it was my name. I suppose, looking back, I didn’t lie to them.”

Adashino listens, quiet and intent. Ginko can almost see the tangible effort its taking him to remain quiet and it makes the air a little lighter, amusement playing on the edges of Ginko’s lips. The story is solemn, he thinks, but it doesn’t feel much like it. “Not much can be studied about it, considering anyone affected loses their memory. I haven’t personally come across anyone else affected by it, nor found any records saying anything more than what I already know.”

“You really don’t remember anything?” Adashino finally interrupts, though his voice is quiet and thoughtful rather than his usual excited chatter. Ginko frowns; it’s an expected question and he wants to say _no_ outright because he doesn’t, really, except…

“I don’t know,” Ginko eventually says. “Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I think someone is calling me a different name— sometimes I think _Ginko_ was something else. But if the memories are there, I can’t get to them. It might just be leftovers. Crumbs. Remnants that the Tokoyami didn’t fully consume.”

He flicks the ashes into the coals and watches them flare up before burning out, the scent of mushi tobacco in his lungs. “Either way, I suppose the answer is no. Whoever I was before is lost, or…”

“The person you were before might be as good as dead,” Adashino says, bluntly. “It happens sometimes with amnesia patients. Their new personality is so different that their friends, their kids, even their spouse can’t recognize them. Whoever that person was is pretty much gone.”

Ginko hums in quiet agreement, taking a long drag of his cigarette. Not pleasant, but then, not surprising, either. It’s something he’s already figured himself, and besides, the doctor always speaks carelessly. Honest, but tactless.

“But.”

Adashino speaks the word sharply, drawing attention. “You aren’t dead, you know. _You_ never died. You came out of the woods, and you’ve been here ever since. Maybe I’d feel bad if I knew whatever kid got eaten by it, but I didn’t. I’ve only ever known you, the Ginko that’s here because of all this. It's horrible for that kid, I suppose, but if you're happy now, there's no point in moping about it."

The words seem to hang in the air like smoke, settling down slowly. There’s something of a finality to hearing words spoken so seriously by the lackadaisical doctor. Ginko is left to stare as the implications sink in, a different perspective than he’s considered. It’s not the mushi’s fault he can’t stay in one place— Suguro told him that already, once. His body had always attracted mushi and he still doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what he can do about it. Still, he’d blamed the Tokoyami for everything else, for the memory loss, for the lack of identity, for the too-familiar darkness feeling empty.

It’s the first time he’s considered he only has this identity _because_ of the Tokoyami; the first time he’s considered it anything short of a misfortune.

_If you're happy now._

“Anyway,” Adashino carries on, not giving him long to dwell on it now. His expression is back to being eager, child-like and enthusiastic. “What else?”

“What else is there?” Ginko puts his cigarette out just as Adashino pours a mug of tea, handing it to him wordlessly. It’s sweet-tasting and Ginko absently realizes it must be made for him, sugar covering up the taste of medicinal herbs. A kind, wordless gesture; Ginko feels the warmth of it settle into his bones as he drinks, letting his gaze settle on the greenery outside.

The sun has nearly set while they were talking. Ginko watches the shadows through the open door as they spread over the hill, creeping slowly towards night time.

“Did it do anything else to you? Will it?”

Creeping slowly towards darkness.

“I can see in the dark,” Ginko casually says. It gets the reaction he expected, Adashino torn between excitement and skepticism.

“You’re playing me,” he says slowly.

“I’m not. I just don’t need the light.”

 _Not entirely true,_ he thinks. He doesn’t know what he would be if he didn’t have it. Beyond lanterns being useful in certain situations— preventing being mistaken as prey by hunters, for one— something just instinctively tells him it’s dangerous to get too comfortable in the dark. And the dark, already, is too comfortable as it is.

But for the purposes of this story, for the purposes of eyesight alone, it’s enough just to say he doesn’t need it. “Close the door if you don’t believe me,” Ginko shrugs. “Put out the fire, too. I’ll find anything in this room in the dark.”

If Ginko thought night could fall quickly in a forest, he was wrong. Night clearly comes the fastest when Adashino wants to see the effects of a mushi, the fire doused and the doors closed faster than Ginko would have actually thought possible. Adashino trips on the futon on his way back and Ginko smirks openly, expression hidden by the shadows.

To those who can see mushi, the room isn’t completely dark. Phosphorescent shapes float aimlessly around, harmless stray mushi passing through as commonly as dust. He never does bother telling Adashino that there’s practically always mushi around; he doesn’t need the doctor riled up for nothing. To Adashino, the room is nearly pitch black, the weak moonlight coming in through the pale paper screen doors not enough to illuminate even a single step.

To Ginko, the room is outlined in different colors of black, all nearly the same but so different it’s a color spectrum of its own.

 _It isn’t, though._ He has to remind himself of that. There are no colors— no brown of the cabinets, no blue of the futon, no pale white of Adashino’s skin. Shades of black are not color, but it’s easy for him to forget, like this.

“Watch out for the futon,” Ginko says, amusement clear in his voice.

“Gee,” Adashino grumbles from the floor. “Thanks. Let’s see _you_ do better.”

“I doubt you’ll be able to _see_ me do better…”

He doesn’t need to be able to see to know that Adashino is outright glaring at him; he smiles wryly in response. “Alright, alright. Well, your monocle is six or so inches to the right of your left leg.”

Adashino slides his hand out blindly, picking up the glasspiece. His eyes widen slightly, but the skeptical squint is still there as he twirls it aimlessly between his fingers. “You could have guessed that,” he accuses. He holds up a hand, finger and thumb touching in a gesture for OK. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Briefly, Ginko wonders what the room looks like to Adashino; he doesn’t remember what the dark is actually supposed to look like. But then he answers, “You aren’t holding up any, you con artist,” and Adashino sputters and he doesn’t mind getting to see that, the way his eyes light up with fascination.

They’re probably the brightest things Ginko can see right now.

“Not going to make me go hunting around the room to prove it any further?” Ginko half-offers, willing to indulge him this much.

“You… probably shouldn’t... walk much tonight,” Adashino says, clearly reluctant to be a voice of reason. He brightens up immediately as something occurs to him, standing and feeling his way blindly through the room to reach a desk, various pens scattered about. “Can you read, too?”

He waves a piece of paper in the air, fumbling his way back to hand it to Ginko. He more or less punches him in the shoulder with it, but it’s amusing to watch. Ginko smooths out the crumpled paper, squinting at the messy inkmarks. Dark or not, Adashino’s penmanship is sloppy at the best of times.

_Ginko,_

_You know, every time it’s been a while since you come, you always arrive either injured or needing my help. Seriously, it’s as sure as clockwork. I don’t suspect asking you to stop by will actually get you here any sooner, so I thought instead I’d say this:_

_The weather will be nice next month._

_Adashino_

“...Is that what you were going to send?” Ginko asks, rolling the slip of parchment back up. He can't help but stare at it in confusion— what kind of message is  _the weather will be nice?_ Did he give up on writing some kind of poem? "What was it supposed to mean?"

Adashino, meanwhile, is staring at him like he is quite possibly the most fascinating thing in the universe— it feels a bit unnerving, like being under a microscope. “It was, but then you showed up and saved me the trouble. And I was _right,”_ he grumbles. He takes the paper back, only to seem to realize he can't actually do anything with it. "It didn't mean anything, really. I just figured since actually asking didn't get me anywhere, maybe I needed to be more subtle."

"So you sent me a letter... commenting on the weather."

"Well, I didn't _send_ it."

Ginko laughs despite himself, pulling open one of his drawers to dig around for a match to toss into the fireplace. It sparks to life easily enough, light filling the room once again. Adashino covers his eyes immediately with a short hiss, squinting them open slowly. "No, that's fine, don't warn me," Adashino mutters, "Not like a man can go blind or anything." Ginko's smirk is visible, now, though he makes no attempt to smooth his expression into something less amused.

Adashino stares at him once his eyes adjust, leaning in to peer closer. Ginko wonders what he sees now, what he thinks. What will be different. But Adashino only leans back on his hands, giving a long-suffering sigh. "I still can't  _see_ it," he whines. "Why can't you bring me a mushi I can actually see for once?"

In the end, Adashino is still Adashino, it seems. "Right, I'll try and get infested more visibly next time."

"Good!" Adashino huffs, though it's more of a laugh than agitation. The silence after, though, falls somber— Ginko knows what he's going to say before he says it. "You didn't answer my last question."

"No, it can't talk," Ginko tries. "Almost no mushi can—"

"What  _will_ it do to you, Ginko?"

It's not like he can tell him even if he wanted to. Not that he wants to, either. He's had to be the bearer of bad news often enough, he thinks it's only fair if someone else has to read his charts for a change. Let someone else be the messenger, let someone else break the silence with grim realities. He can't find anyone else like him, he can't find records, he can't find research, he can't find  _remnants._ He doesn't know what will happen, not really, but he knows what usually happens to mushi hosts. He knows what it usually means if proof of existence does not remain. He knows that the Tokoyami _consumes._

"...Who knows?" Ginko says aloud, finishing off the last of his tea. He sets the glass down and stands to settle down into the futon, hoping against his better judgement that Adashino will take it as a hint. His leg gives a slight twinge, but nothing more. "Guess I'll find out."

“Hmm. Alright then.”

Ginko startles at the easy agreement, unable to stop his eye from widening. "That’s it?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? _Someday is a day that is not today,”_ Adashino echoes. “We’ll deal with it eventually if something happens, but I don’t see any problems now. Well,” he slyly adds, “So long as you don’t go and get eaten by bears.”

At that, Ginko pulls the blankets up over himself with a huff, settling in for the night. The fire is the only light left in the room and Adashino is busy pulling out his own futon, putting away the unsent letter and the tea kettle and the empty cup. Ginko feels drowsy, drained, but good. Better than he has in ages, but then, Adashino's medicine always is the most effective.

_If you're happy now._

“...I should be alright,” Ginko says eventually, yawning. “I know of a good doctor who keeps patching me up.”

Adashino is smiling when he puts the fire out again; the shadows, somehow, seem lighter than before.

“That’s fine, then.”

Ginko sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> this time a request that was actually for me and not one I scrounged from the depths of 2007 LJ-- _"Hrm, if I may, can I request a story where Ginko recounts his encounter with the Tokoyami to Adashino?"_ from [BrilliantCrow,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantCrow/pseuds/BrilliantCrow) via a review on my other fic, firewater. I hope this is something like you were looking for.
> 
> feel free to drop a request if you have one too; or just let me know what you liked, so I can do it again.
> 
> またいつか


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